scotsman

CHECHNYA’S main rebel warlord yesterday claimed responsibility for the hostage-taking attack on a Moscow theatre and promised future attacks would be even more destructive.

"The next time, those who come won’t make any demands, won’t take hostages," Shamil Basayev said on a Chechen website. Their "main goal will be destroying the enemy and exacting maximum damage," he said. The statement’s authenticity could not be confirmed.

Basayev claimed the attack was planned without the knowledge of the Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov. He asked Maskhadov’s forgiveness for preparing the raid in secret and said he would resign from the rebel hierarchy.

The statement came as Russian deputies backed major new restrictions on the reporting of terrorist events, including banning newspapers and TV from carrying rebel statements.

The press minister, Mikhail Lesin, said the hostage-takers at the Moscow theatre "had elaborated a media plan".

He added: "They were very well prepared from the point of view of the Russian mass media, journalists and newsmakers. And they used this situation very well."

The Russian parliament’s lower house gave preliminary approval to amendments to the country’s media laws on 23 October, just hours before dozens of heavily armed attackers burst into a Moscow theatre and took more than 800 people hostage.

Special forces stormed the theatre three days later, killing 41 of the attackers. At least 119 hostages died, most felled by a gas the troops used to incapacitate the terrorists.

Up to 172 hostages, including six children, were still in hospital yesterday, said Lyubov Zhomova, a spokeswoman for the Moscow health committee.

The new amendments were approved yesterday, but must still be approved by the upper house and signed by Mr Putin. They would prohibit the media from distributing information that hinders counter-terrorist operations, reveals tactics used in such operations or reveals information about people involved in them.

They would also ban the publication or broadcast of "statements by individuals that are aimed at hindering a counter-terrorist operation and/or justifying resistance to a counter-terrorist operation" and other "propaganda or justification of extremist activity".

Speaking in favour of the amendments yesterday, MP Vyacheslav Volodin said "the journalistic community should take more responsibility". "Things should not be allowed to be taken too far," he said.

But human rights activists said the law could further stifle debate of the war in Chechnya - and keep Russians from being informed about it. Coverage of the war is already severely restricted, and it is almost impossible for journalists to work in Chechnya except in co-ordination with the military.

But last week’s hostage crisis unfolded squarely in the media glare. Most television stations went live for hours at a time and radio stations broadcast mobile phone conversations with hostages.

The hostage-takers even invited two crews from NTV television inside the theatre. But the interview given by the attackers’ bandleaders was not broadcast in full, in spite of the attackers’ demands.

A hastily arranged mobile phone conversation between the station and one of the hostage-takers was abruptly cut off before it could begin; the anchor said the line had been cut, and no attempt appeared to be made to restore it.

Also yesterday, the lower house voted to prohibit returning terrorists’ bodies to their families or revealing their place of burial.

Mr Putin’s representative in parliament, Alexander Kotenkov, said the amendment was a logical extension of existing law under which relatives of convicts sentenced to death are not told of the burial place.

"A terrorist is not just a murderer, he or she is a member of a political organisation pursuing ideological goals. So the fact of his or her burial is also a political act that should be prevented from the start," Mr Kotenkov said.

Police continued to comb Moscow for suspected terrorists and their collaborators. A 38-year-old Ukrainian man carrying three grenades was detained in a Moscow subway station, city officials said.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2002